Doctor bleeding a patient

Medicine and health

Paul Morland. (Photo by Frank Monks)

Books interview with Paul Morland: “Even the Spanish flu pandemic wasn’t enough to stop population growth”.

The First World War promoted advances in medicine, and in sectors such as aviation, that had not just military but also peacetime benefits, says David Stevenson. Here Captain Francis Derwent Wood treats the face of a patient, creating a mask which matches as closely as possible to the man's faces before he was injured, c1916. (Photo by Horace Nicholls/ IWM via Getty Images)

The First World War: what was it good for?.

The miller Samuel Wood, whose arm and scapula were torn off when entangled in a rope attached to a moving mill machinery in 1737. (Photo by Alamy)

7 bizarre cases in the history of medicine.

Kill or cure? 10 medieval medical practices and their effectiveness

Nurses serve lunch to patients at a Birmingham hospital, 1939. (Photo by Humphrey Spender/Picture Post/Getty Images)

What was healthcare like in Britain before the NHS?

A New York opium den. Although US legislators cracked down on opiates in the early 20th century, organised crime networks continued to fuel the illegal trade in narcotics. (Photo by Getty Images)

Books interview with Lucy Inglis: “Opium has held mankind’s hand since the beginning”.

Medieval medicine: killer or cure?.

An introduction to the Black Death

Welsh Labour politician Aneurin Bevan making a speech on the freedom of the press at a meeting of the National Council of Civil Liberties at Central Hall, Westminster, London, in 1942. (Photo by Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Getty Images)

My history heroTanni Grey-Thompson chooses Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan.

A man sneezes into a handkerchief, c1936. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

General History

6 facts about the history of hay fever

Mona Baptiste, a Trinidad-born blues singer

“London is the place for me”: David Olusoga on the Windrush generation.

A bite-sized history of teeth.

Bearded Victorian man. (Photo by Getty Images)

A brief history of beards

A 14th-century Flemish illustration depicting the burying of plague victims in coffins in Tournai in 1349. (Photo by Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy Stock Photo)

Black Death: “Oh father, why have you abandoned me?”.

A contemporary pictorial depiction of the Great Plague.

The Black Death: the historians’ view.

500 years of medicine.

A badge promoting the Tufty Club, an organisation launched by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents to educate children on road safety, 1941. (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images)

Safety first: 20th-century health and safety messages

The history of today.

The Spanish Flu pandemic.

In pictures: Diversity in nursing

Victorian medicine.

‘Quacks’: the terrors and theatrics of Victorian medicine.

Portrait depicting Mary, Queen of Scots.

History quiz - surgeons and Mary, Queen of Scots.

The operation

John Hunter and the horrors of 18th-century surgery.

History quiz – Anglo-Saxons, Bright’s disease and the Byzantine army.

A giant leap for mankind: William Harvey reveals the circulation of the blood

The Franciscans treating victims of the plague, miniature from La Franceschina, c1474, codex by Jacopo Oddi. Perugia, Biblioteca Capitolare (Library). (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

The hospital experience in medieval England

16th century engraving depicting a man with leprosy

Q&AHow did doctors treat leprosy?

A group of girls taking a bath as part of a contest to see who can wash the fastest.

General prehistory

Q&AHow old is bathing?

Chinese plague

Q&AWhat was the Third Plague pandemic?